Lesson 1. Quick start

SvetoMaster turns an ordinary computer into a full lighting console. In this lesson we go all the way from an empty project to a finished mini-show: we add fixtures, build four scenes, start a chase in time with the music and try the ready-made effects. Anyone can follow along — even if you have never worked with light before.

What you need: just the program. A USB-DMX adapter and real fixtures are optional — everything is visible in the 3D visualizer, and you can connect the hardware later.

First, the theory in brief

If light control is new to you, let’s go through five words so that everything below makes sense. That is the whole theoretical minimum — nothing more is needed to start.

Picture a single cable running from the computer to all the fixtures. Inside it are 512 “lanes”, and about 40 times a second a command runs down each of them to a fixture: “you — do this”. Those lanes are exactly what light control over the DMX standard is.

Word	In plain language
DMX	The “language” a computer uses to command light. One line = 512 channels
Channel	One “knob” for one parameter of a fixture. Value from 0 to 255 (0 — off/minimum, 255 — maximum). For example: the dimmer channel, the red channel, the pan channel
Fixture	Your PAR / moving head / laser. It takes up several channels in a row — as many as it has “knobs”
Address	The fixture’s “seat number” on the line — the channel it starts listening from. A 6-channel PAR at address 1 takes channels 1–6, so the next one starts at address 7
Profile	The “passport” of a fixture model: which of its channels does what. Taken from the library or from a photo — and the program then knows how to drive it

How it works, step by step: you move colour and brightness in the program → it recalculates all 512 numbers → sends them down the DMX cable → every fixture reads “its own” channels (counting from its address) and obeys. Everything we do in this lesson is about preparing those numbers in a nice, convenient way.

⚠️ Careful: the address is the single most important thing once real hardware is involved. It must match in the program and on the fixture itself (on the body the address is set with buttons or switches). If it does not match, the fixture will not “hear” the commands, or the wrong one will answer. This lesson needs no hardware, so addresses can wait — the program assigns them by itself.

💡 To drive real lighting equipment (PARs, moving heads and so on) from SvetoMaster you will need a USB-DMX controller or Art-Net/sACN.

Fig. 1 — The main SvetoMaster window: the program shows the stage in 3D right away

Step 1. A couple of minutes to get to know the interface

Everything important sits at the top of the window. There are five modes here — the five “work rooms” of the program:

Mode	What it is for
Patch	Where your fixtures and their DMX addresses live
Prog	The studio: set the light up and build scenes
Live	A concert console for a live performance
Cons	All 512 channels by hand — checking and diagnostics
AI	The built-in neural network: builds scenes from a text description

Fig. 2 — The mode switch and the controls in the header

Also in the header: the master dimmer (overall brightness), the DMX button (connecting the adapter), SOUND and the big BLACKOUT button — kill everything instantly.

On the left of the screen is the visualizer: a three-dimensional stage that shows how your light falls. The 3D view can be switched to 2D.

💡 Tip: no fixtures are connected yet, and the picture is already alive. Which means you can prepare a show at home, without hardware — at the venue all that is left is to plug the adapter into USB.

Fig. 3 — The 3D visualizer: fixture beams are visible with no hardware at all

The working blocks can be fitted to your taste. Between the visualizer and the fixture list there is a thin vertical splitter bar, and above the bottom block of scenes and chases there is a horizontal one. Hover over it (it lights up), hold and drag — the neighbouring blocks move apart: want a bigger visualizer, drag to the right; want more room for scenes, drag the splitter up. A double click on the splitter restores the standard size, and the program remembers your layout until next time.

Fig. 6 — The main SvetoMaster window: the movable blocks

Note the interface scaling for your screen as well. Hold Ctrl and turn the mouse wheel to make the interface elements larger or smaller.

Step 2. Adding fixtures

We switch to Patch mode and press the “Add fixture” button.

Fig. 4 — The “Add fixture” button and the menu of ways to add one

The most familiar route is “From the library”: thousands of ready profiles inside. Search for your model by name — and add it in one click.

Fig. 5 — The profile library: search by name and by manufacturer

But there is an even more interesting way — recognition from a photo. Take a phone shot of the back panel of the fixture (with the exact model name) or of the manual page with the channel table (that way is more accurate), choose “From a photo (AI)” and point to the picture. The artificial intelligence builds the profile itself: how many channels there are and what each of them does.

💡 Tip: photo recognition is free for every user — all you need is an internet connection at the moment of recognition. A sharp photo of the channel table from the manual gives the best result.

Our PAR has appeared in the patch. The lesson needs four of them — no need to repeat the photo trick: press the duplicate icon in the fixture’s row three times.

Fig. 7 — The patch table: four PARs, addresses assigned automatically

⚠️ Careful: the program assigned the DMX addresses itself so that nothing overlaps. If the addresses are already set on your real fixtures, simply type them into the “Address” column.

Step 3. Building four scenes

We switch to Prog mode. On the right is the list of our fixtures.

Click the “Pars” group chip — all four PARs are selected at once.

Fig. 8 — Selecting a whole group of fixtures in one click

Now let’s give them colour. In the Color panel pick white and raise the brightness. Watch the visualizer — the fixtures are lit!

For the visualizer to show a realistic result, the placement of the fixtures and the direction they shine in have to be set. Right-click a fixture and set its vertical position — in our case that will be “On a truss”. We leave the beam pointing down, but you can change it however you need.

Fig. 9 — Setting the placement and beam direction of the fixtures

Now let’s push the fader for red all the way up and the rest down to 0 (all except the master dimmer).

This is our first “picture” — let’s save it. A quick save is one click on the icon at the bottom left of the visualizer. But while we are learning, let’s save it with a name: open the “Scenes” tab in the bottom block and press “+ Scene” on the right. In the new scene window, name it “Red”. Save — done.

Fig. 10 — Saving a scene: a name plus the “Save” button

💡 What a scene is: it is a “snapshot” of the light. The program has remembered the colour and brightness of every fixture and can bring that picture back at any moment — in one click.

From here it goes faster, same recipe:

Change the colour to blue → save the scene as “Blue”.
Set white → save “White”.
Let’s make the fourth one fancier: select two PARs and leave them red, give the other two blue → save “Red and blue”.

Fig. 11 — The fourth scene: two fixtures in red, two in blue

That makes four scenes — in a minute.

Fig. 12 — Four finished scenes in the list

Step 4. Bringing it to life: building a chase

A chase is a sequence of scenes that the program runs round and round: the light starts moving by itself.

Open the “Chases” tab and press “+ Chase”. On the left of the editor is the list of our scenes: click each one and they become steps of the chase.

Fig. 13 — The chase editor: scenes added as steps

Leave the sync on “BPM” — the chase will step in time with the music. Press “Save” and start the chase by clicking its card.

Watch the visualizer: red… blue… white… two-colour — and round again!

The tempo is set with a single button: tap TAP in the header in time with the music (or the T key) — and the light lands on the beat.

Fig. 15 — TAP: tap the tempo and the chase falls into the groove

💡 Tip: want it slower or faster? A chase has a speed divider: a step on every beat, on every other beat (÷2) or, the other way round, two steps per beat (×2). It is set in the same chase editor.

Step 5. Ready-made effects

Not everything has to be built by hand. Open the “Effects” tab — there are dozens of ready presets here: Rainbow, Running wave, Pulsing, Police lights, Sparkle, movement effects for moving heads.

Click a fixture group (Pars, for instance), then pick a colour on any effect — and it is already running, right on top of your scene. No programming: one click.

Fig. 16 — The “Effects” tab: pick a colour and the effect is running

💡 Tip: like an effect? Right-click it and choose “Save as chase” — you get an ordinary chase whose steps you can then tune to taste.

Let’s sum up

In one short lesson we:

added fixtures from a photograph (and learned about the library of thousands of profiles);
built four scenes — a click on a group and a click on a colour;
joined them into a chase that steps in time with the music via the TAP button;
started a ready-made effect in one click.

And all of that without a single DMX table and without any hardware connected.

What is next: in the following lesson we connect a USB-DMX controller and send the light out to real fixtures, and after that we take a closer look at scenes, chases and presets.

Download and install SvetoMaster right now if you have not done it yet. Plug your light in — let’s carry on in the next lesson!